


Together In Electric Dreams

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Computers, Evil Plans, F/F, Pre-Episode: s07e07 The Bells of Saint John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-06-26 01:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19757818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Missy has never been particularly patient, but with the promised payoff of one Clara Oswald and the fruition of a dastardly scheme, she mightjustbe able to contain her boredom.





	Together In Electric Dreams

Missy was, in a word, bored.

It wasn’t that she didn’t _like_ working in Computers B Uz. (Although, she had to admit, the name was a constant source of antagonism between herself and Dave, the uselessly apathetic owner, who it turned out was decidedly _less_ apathetic when it came to defending his sartorial choice in shop names.) It was merely that she felt it was very much beneath her. Time Ladies did not generally spend large periods of times in the back rooms of shops with men who looked like they’d never even so much as _seen_ a woman before, let alone engaged in conversation with one. It had taken poor, pimply Chaz a good six months before he stopped going beet red every time she spoke to him – admittedly, she may have been _somewhat_ more seductive in her general manner than was strictly necessary, but hey; a girl’s got to get her kicks somehow – and he’d now graduated to making small, nervous squeaking sounds in response to her utterances.

She supposed she could have just arrived at the necessary point in the timeline, but that would have involved people asking too many questions – questions like ‘who are you?’ and ‘what are you doing in my shop?’ and ‘are you going to kill me?’ – and honestly, that all just seemed like _far_ too much trouble, so she’d settled for this: the long haul. She’d given boring old Darren a winning lottery ticket, then answered the resulting job vacancy that had appeared in the newspaper – deliciously, quaintly, and unironically old-fashioned for a computer shop – and rebuilt a motherboard at the interview in under thirty seconds. Apparently unconvinced, Dave had challenged her to switch the end result on, which she had done, and then possibly done a _wee_ bit of sonicking until the monitor produced 3D holograms, at which point he’d begrudgingly hired her.

The money was shite, of course, but that didn’t matter; she’d developed a side interest in tackling malware and phishing software by installing her own – infinitely more insidious – malware onto hard-drives; the kind that quietly emptied out bank accounts without a trace before detonating silently in the depths of the computer’s software and wiping the memory entirely. Acutely aware that any such nastiness could be traced back to the shop, and therefore to her, Missy made sure to pick her customers with absolute care, and so it was that the purveyors of London’s dodgiest porn sites found their bank accounts emptied and their computers wiped. Too embarrassed to go back and see the arousing-yet-terrifying female computer tech who had fixed the first lot of post-pornography viruses, said customers simply quietly went about their business without making a fuss, taking out memberships to the local library instead. 

To pass the time, of course, Missy had also been doing some non-viral moonlighting. Windows 8 was a particularly excellent achievement, one that she felt Satan himself would have been proud of, and she’d made a devilishly superb suggestion to Apple about an upcoming U2 album. There had been the odd cyber-attack on the Pentagon or GCHQ, but by and large she passed the hours by flirting with nerds, buying excessive quantities of designer lipstick, and moving into successively larger hotel rooms with the proceeds of her malware exploits.

She’d just upgraded to a particularly swanky penthouse when the cherished day finally came, and she all but skipped into work that morning with her lips painted a particularly garish shade of plum. She was garbed, as was her habit, in loud purple jeans and a purple shirt, with the obligatory orange Computers B Uz polo shirt arranged over the top and she looked, as she well knew, absolutely ridiculous, but the expression on her face dared anyone to express that sentiment aloud. 

“'Ello, dearies,” she enthused in her hammed-up Cockney accent as she stepped through the door of the shop, her smile amped up to ‘dazzling’. “Alright, muckers?”

There was a muted round of grunting that constituted a ‘hello’ from her colleagues, and she sauntered over to the main counter and switched on the ancient shared desktop PC that sat there, settling in and getting ready for moment she had been so impatiently waiting for.

It was twelve minutes past eleven when the door jangled open and the promised customer stepped over the threshold, blinking in the sudden darkness and clutching a blue laptop under one arm. Ah, these young people and their gaudy computers. Missy wasn’t opposed to a bit of brightness, but blue had never much been her colour. A nice blood red or midnight purple – that she could get on board with. 

“’Ow can we ‘elp?” she asked the stranger-but-not-stranger brightly. _Bless_ , Missy thought to herself. _She looks so much more foetal than I remember. Look at that face; that’s a face that’s not seen the scummy side of the universe. Yet._

“Urm, hi,” Clara Oswald – because it was, of course, the one and only; Missy did not waste chunks of her life in BO-scented backrooms for just anyone – began uncertainly, looking visibly relieved to be talking to a woman rather than a condescending male computer tech. “It’s my computer. 

“I’d gavvered,” Missy gave a high little laugh. “That’s what we’re ‘ere for.” 

“Of course,” Clara mirrored her laugh with one of her own, and Missy felt both her hearts give a little lurch. She _was_ rather adorable, wasn’t she? Definitely a good choice. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I just… I can’t find the internet. Sometimes it’s there; sometimes it’s not.” 

“Right,” Missy arched an eyebrow. _Dear god_ , she thought to herself through the mental equivalent of gritted teeth. _Thank **god** you improve in the technologically savvy stakes_. “Well, that’s fixable, innit. Nice and simple, like.”

“Oh!” Clara’s face lit up into an expression of enormous relief. “That’s great news. I thought I was just being particularly stupid… computers aren’t really my thing, you see, and I was scared you’d think I was just incompetent. The kids I look after are always telling me that I’m rubbish at tech because I’m too old – bloody cheek of it, I’m only ten years older than them! – and I was starting to believe it.”

Ah, yes. The children. Missy remembered hearing tell of them; remembered Clara feeling uncommonly shackled to these strange, motherless infants. She supposed she ought to feel contempt for them, but seeing the way Clara smiled subconsciously when she mentioned them, she can’t bring herself to feel anything but warm affection; not just for them, but for the woman in front of her.

“Not at all,” she said kindly, holding her hands out for the computer, which Clara obligingly handed over. “So, it’s just vanishin’?” 

“Yeah, which isn’t helpful when I’m trying to get things done,” Clara sighed as Missy opened the laptop, booted it up, and began typing a stream of nonsense using the keyboard, eager to be seen to be doing _something_. “Sorry to ask, by the way, but where is your lipstick from? It’s glorious.” 

“Oh,” Missy blinked hard, disconcerted by the compliment, but feeling a warm rush of pleasure nonetheless. “Dior, I think.” 

“Wow. I’m in the wrong industry. Computers must be where the money’s at.” 

Missy flashed her a wolfish smile. Clara, to her credit, did not so much as flinch.

“Sorry, love,” Missy gave an apologetic shrug, powering the laptop down and snapping it shut again. “It’s beyond us.” 

“It’s… what?” Clara looked devastated by this news. “But you…” 

“Sorry, it’s a brand-specific issue. Gotta call the ‘otline.” 

“Well, how much is that going to cost me?!” 

_About the next five years of your life. And then your death. You know. Nothing major._

“It’s free, innit,” Missy reached for a pad of paper and scribbled down the familiar number before handing it over atop the laptop. “Computer ‘elpline, love. That's the one. Best ‘elpline in the universe.” 

“Well,” Clara squinted down at it, visibly confused by the strangely long combination of numbers. “Thanks anyway. I’ll give it a call.”

“You make sure you do,” Missy beamed at her with genuine warmth. “’Ave a nice day, now.”

* * *

Dave Coslett, owner and manager of Computers B Uz, was never entirely sure where the strange woman in purple went. One minute she was out the front, helping some pretty girl with dark hair, and the next she was gone – hopefully for good. If he hadn’t known any better, he’d have said she’d vanished into thin air.

But that was impossible. 

Wasn’t it?


End file.
